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Early IBM case lid repainting

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SpidersWeb

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So I have 1 IBM PC case, and 3 IBM PC XT cases.

All have suffered from rust. The latest two additions are so bad it's hard to know weither or not I'd describe them as grey or brown.
It's only surface rust, but there is a lot of it.

Has anyone here tried/succeded at repainting the original cases in a restoration sense e.g. not dark black with flames etc?

Colour matching is one thing, but also the texture :/
 
Try getting some rust remover from your local hardware store. I've had some luck with it. My remover I used, was like a pink jelly. That and a used toothbrush to scrub away the rust, did a real good job.
 
I have rust converter, but rust remover sounds better for this, I'll grab some and try out a small area.
After that do you just lightly spray a new top coat, or do you prime/seal it first?

If I have to prime, I think I'd likely lose the texture.
 
I only powder coat. I've tried painting my cases with various brands of spray paint from Lowes and Home Depot, but they never look right to me--others have had better luck and are much more skilled with paint than me. :) If you paint though, consider using a spray gun instead of cans. Here's an example of a case I powder coated. I painted the plastic with a plastic spray paint from Home Depot, which worked really well.

View attachment 9922View attachment 9923View attachment 9924
 
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Chuck(G) said:
Has anyone tried something like this? I'd be interested to see how it works out.
Click to expand...
Chuck, rustoleum works quite well at preventing rust. I've had experience with it...first and second-hand, working for my Dad. He's a welder, and anything he made was spray-painted with Rustoleum products. Long-lasting, and good, provided that you coat it well to begin with. I don't recall them providing it in custom colors, so if that's still the case, one would need to use it as a primer and then paint over with whatever color they wanted (that's what we always did).

FWIW, Dad often built "dipping vats" for 8ftx4ftxr4ft baskets of cut greens to be dipped in to for cooling as well as coating with chemicals that would "seal" the stems. These vats were huge - about 8' x 4' x 5' - and were coated with rustoleum inside and out. The ones I worked with during high school and early college were usually repainted after 10 years. 30 years later, all of the vats he built are still in use (these were for the "fern" industry in Central Florida, who supplies roughly 80% of the world's cut greens for floral arrangements)
 
@Maverick--I'm pretty familiar with the regular Rust-Oleum enamels, including the non-rattle-can stuff. I've got some (unauthentic) case repainting to do and wondered if anyone had any experience with the textured rattle-can stuff.

Powder coat is definitely better, but you have to (a) have the gear to apply it (b) have the oven to bake it (c) have the piece disassembled so plastic parts won't be damaged in the oven and (d) find the powder coat in the right color.

One project I have to do is a scratched and stained HP storage array rack. Clearly, I don't have the oven for a 6' rack, so powder-coat is out. I was wondering if there was a textured paint that I could use to repaint it. I don't mind using an air sprayer.
 
My apologies, Chuck - didn't mean to tell you what you already knew :) I should've looked more carefully at the picture you posted!

Curious - how much cash are you interested in putting into it? A 6' rack isn't alot to spray with a professional sprayer, and a painter will have all the texture applicators one would need. Might be worth calling a painter and getting a quick estimate, as it should just be a quick stop-over, maybe an hour at most, including cleaning the sprayer afterwards. With the construction industry in the state that it is, you might find a painter more willing to do such a quick one-off job for weekend beer money.
 
Cheers for the discussion guys.

I might see if I can find the nickel coloured rustoleum with texture locally, see if that's close, I couldn't online but maybe if I poke around a few hardware stores I'll stumble across some. If it's a match, I know enough about prep and paint to do a case.

Failing that I'll try and find some body shops that are open weekends and take the lid (minus plastic) and see what they say. Bit akward because most aren't open weekends, and I work in the central city in an office Mon-Fri.

Normally I ignore the rust, call it character, but these two case lids are very bad.
 
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